In Caroline Quentin's new book about gardening there are practical tips and anecdotes, but also deeply personal passages exploring what she calls the "darker times" in her life, particularly as a child growing up with a mother who suffered from bipolar disorder.
"I've chosen not to speak about these things [in the past], but because I wrote about it, I had agency over it. I chose what to say, how to say it, and how to talk about it when people asked me questions," she tells us in our exclusive shoot and interview.
During her acting career, Caroline, 63, has largely been associated with strong or funny women – from Dorothy in Men Behaving Badly to Maddy Magellan in Jonathan Creek. Her work has spanned the chorus of Les Misérables, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Strictly Come Dancing.
Passion for gardening
Throughout it all, gardening has been her solace and comfort, helping her to silence the "inner critic" and teaching her to "forgive ourselves and our failures".
"Listen, I have a very good life and I'm not moaning about it," she says, firmly. "But being mindful of the moment is good for all of us. You can't be on your mobile phone whilst you're potting."
She lives in Tiverton, Devon, with her cosmetics scientist husband Sam Farmer, with whom she has two children, Rose, 24, and William, 20, and they're about to move and downsize – "my next garden is going to be more for the Third Age, I think they call it".
She can see a time in the not-so-distant future when she turns down an acting job for her garden. "My happiest times are when I'm on my own, in the greenhouse, not surrounded by 200 people on a film set or a thousand people at the Olivier Theatre. I really enjoy acting. But it's always been my work."
Caroline's relationship with her mother
Her childhood was overshadowed by her mother Katie's illness – once called manic depression – for which she spent periods of time in a psychiatric hospital. In her book, Caroline describes her mother's creative "ups" and the devastating "downs".
"It's only as you get older that you realise the impact it's had, but at the time it's your reality, your normality. It's your mother, who you adore, someone who should be looking after you, so it's a complex thing and very hard to talk about it."
Family life and children
Caroline's family life with Sam has been both strong and secure. "He's always been there," she says.
She is unapologetically proud of Rose, an actress with whom she's worked twice and "bloody loved" it, and William, who is studying politics at Leeds University. He was born when she was 42, when Caroline was also juggling a demanding career.
Looking to the future
However, she has found her seventh decade liberating.
"I'm liking my 60s a lot. I'm discovering that I'm entitled to be whatever the f*** I want to be, actually. I don't have to conform, I can be who I am and it's good enough because that's all there is. The terrible insecurities that all women feel, they don't disappear. But as you get older, you can give yourself a break.
"I don't know how much longer I've got and what I don't want to do is spend my time making value judgments on myself – 'Am I too old? Too grey?' – because the world will do that to women anyway."
It certainly hasn't stopped the work from coming in: she's currently on a bookshop tour, planning a stage show and waiting to sign up to a TV series that, she says, "will be a nice gig, if we can do the deal".
Drawn to the Garden, published by Frances Lincoln, is out now.
To read the rest of this interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
